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Aberdeen Looks to New Stadium to Reignite Old Firm Challenge

Ian ThomsonA granite gate greets fans as they walk to Aberdeen’s stadium from the city center. It is likely the gate and stadium will be replaced by a housing development.

Aberdeen’s Pittodrie Stadium has a long history of pioneering. Among its boasts, it was the first soccer stadium in the world to feature a dugout and it was the first all-seat stadium in Britain.

In the 1980s, Pittodrie was the trailblazing home fit for Sir Alex Ferguson’s trailblazing team that captured two European trophies, three Scottish league championships, four Scottish Cups and one League Cup during a dominant six-year stretch. Now the club is trying to lead again by moving to the biggest new stadium in Scotland for more than a century.

That spells the end for Pittodrie, Aberdeen’s home since 1903. The fabled site, not much farther than a goal kick from the bitter North Sea on Scotland’s northeastern coast, seems destined to be turned into an apartment block while the soccer team moves to new surroundings on the city’s southern perimeter.

Relocation is not sitting well with traditionalists used to parking their cars on the sea esplanade or in the crowded streets around the stadium. Nor with those that stroll from Aberdeen’s nearby city center, stopping off for a pre-match pint in their favorite bar before marching down Merkland Road where they are warmed by Pittodrie’s gloomy granite facade that bears the club’s name. A recent survey conducted by the city’s Evening Express newspaper revealed that 52 percent of respondents were unhappy with the move.

“I take encouragement from that in some ways,” said Duncan Fraser, Aberdeen’s chief executive, in a recent interview. “When you start this process people overwhelmingly don’t want to move, but I think they are beginning to see the reality.”

Soccer’s landscape has altered dramatically since Ferguson left for Manchester United in 1986, and stadium requirements were overhauled after the incidents at Bradford, Heysel and Hillsborough.

“When you look at stadium development now, Pittodrie’s fallen so far behind,” Fraser said. “It’s an old crumbling, structure.”

Fraser’s grandparents lived within earshot of the Pittodrie crowd’s cheers and he attended his first Aberdeen game as a 6-year-old in 1971. The evening of March 16, 1983, stands out as his fondest memory of Pittodrie, as it surely does for all of the 24,000 fans that crammed inside to see Aberdeen topple Bayern Munich in the European Cup Winners’ Cup quarterfinal.

The stadium filled again two months later as jubilant fans welcomed home Ferguson’s all-conquering Dons after they beat Real Madrid in Gothenburg, Sweden, to lift the trophy.

“Those memories don’t go,” Fraser said. “When we move, we’ll be doing it for the right reason and we need to do it.”

Another European encounter with Bayern Munich four years ago highlighted Pittodrie’s shortcomings to the club’s staff. The stadium, with its field hemmed in by four separate structures and its main stand supported by view-obscuring pillars, could not cope with the demands of German television and the increased news media presence. Staging a game of such magnitude in this era requires facilities that Pittodrie lacks.

“We haven’t got enough space for referees,” said Chris Gavin, a nonexecutive director appointed to the club’s board as a fans’ representative. “You’ve got to be able to accommodate female referees, warm-up areas, all kinds of things, and there is no way to fit all of that on this site.”

Ian ThomsonAberdeen’s home, Pittodrie Stadium, has a capacity of 22,199 and has been used since 1899.

Redeveloping Pittodrie would not be easy. Three stands back onto streets, housing sits behind the fourth, and strict UEFA standards have to be met.

“That would probably put our capacity down to 12,000 with very little corporate facilities,” Fraser said. “It would kill the club.”

Corporate revenue has remained strong in a city where a booming oil and gas industry has fortified the local economy. Aberdeen’s income from match day entertainment is “way above any other club in Scotland at the moment,” Fraser said, and the new stadium will increase corporate facilities by two-thirds.

A supporters’ bar for regular fans will adjoin the facility, extra legroom and catering outlets will be provided, and shuttle buses will ferry people to the stadium from several park-and-ride destinations around the city. An on-site museum documenting the history of Aberdeen’s soccer club and the entire region will be used throughout the year as an attraction for visitors and local schools.

It has been more than 16 years since the last piece of silverware — the 1995 Scottish League Cup — was added to Pittodrie’s trophy cabinet, and Celtic and Rangers have resumed joint-ownership of the league title since Aberdeen’s last success in 1985. Even the Old Firm giants are suffering economic hardship as broadcasting revenue floods into Europe’s largest markets at the expense of smaller nations.

Attendances in Scotland are falling and declining playing standards means reduced income from transfer fees. In Aberdeen’s case, Fraser estimates that staying at Pittodrie adds about $1 million annually to the club’s expenses to keep the stadium certified with health and safety requirements.

“Aberdeen need to be seen as the natural challengers to the Old Firm,” Fraser said. “That’s what our supporters strive for and that’s what we’ve got to aim for.”

Ian Thomson is a New York-based journalist and former Aberdeen season-ticket holder who attended his first game at Pittodrie in April 1982. Follow him on Twitter at i_thomson.

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